Sarah Wilson: So nobody loses trust in the meeting where a mistake was made. I mean we all do it. Errors happen, it's just a way of life, a way in business. Everyone's really understanding in that meeting, but people start to lose trust three weeks later when the same thing happens again and it starts to feel like a habit. It can be a big cost to the operations team when the business loses trust. Once people stop believing you in what you do and what you that you're going to do, what you say you're going to do, they stop looping you in and they stop going to you as the go-to for being the problem solver. They build workarounds to you or to your ops team instead of optimizing for operational excellence. The part that catches good operators is the response to that. When trust drops, there is a really key instinct that kicks in. Let's add more check-ins, let's add more approval gates, let's add more accountability and in ways that feel like accountability, but don't actually end up being so. What ends up happening is adding friction to an already broken process now that trust is gone. So trust isn't something that can be rebuilt right away. It's something that comes back slowly over time as as you put key things into place. It comes back because you change something and people can see it working. Hi, I'm Sarah Wilson. I'm a fractional COO and operational turnaround partner for SMB. I help businesses struggling with complexity and challenges within their operational core. I work with founders to install scalable, repeatable processes and to unlock the ability to grow with the teams and tools they already have.
Penny Cook: And hi, I'm Penny Cook. I'm also a fractional COO And a strategic operations consultant, helping product and consumer brands install, upgrade, and run scalable operations and operational systems that reflect the founder's unique vision and ambition. Let's get into it, Sarah. This is a great topic to talk about and a little painful for people, I think, because what we're
Sarah Wilson: Agreed.
Penny Cook: reflecting is an inevitable failure in a system. And I think that we can all connect to this because we've all been there. And one of the things that helps people become senior leaders in their field is they've navigated challenges like this. You've felt what they feel like either when you've made these mistakes or when you're working with partners who made these mistakes. And just because you've made these mistakes, it doesn't mean your relationships are uncoverable. Unre sorry. It doesn't mean your relationships are unrecoverable. It doesn't mean your reputation is unrecoverable. It's a signal that things need to change in the right direction, and you're absolutely able to do that. So let's start here with where most people go wrong, which is the apology. You know something's gone wrong.
Sarah Wilson: Yes.
Penny Cook: It's not a matter of whether you give one because you're going to give one, but how many times you give it and what you're expecting to happen around you. So your whole correction when something has gone wrong with your team's delivery is three sentences. What you said would happen, what happened, and what's changing. That's it. It can be tempting to start overexplaining, blaming the system, giving explanations. And
Sarah Wilson: Yes.
Penny Cook: you you can share if it's relevant, maybe what went wrong in the system. But the highlight of the apology really is around your accountability because as a leader, this is your job to fix, and you want to start rebuilding the trust from the people around you that you're going to do that, right, Sarah?
Sarah Wilson: Absolutely. I I like the term apology tour. That's not where it's at.
Penny Cook: Yeah.
Sarah Wilson: we can sometimes go overboard when it comes to apologizing for our mistakes and that just people intend well when they they think they're they're taking real accountability and they're they're being open and honest with how it's gone and But it actually lands the opposite. It it sounds almost disingenuous to continue to apologize over and over. And it actually removes confidence that the people outside your team are gonna have in you and your team. The key here is to
Penny Cook: Right.
Sarah Wilson: apologize, but at the same time maintain that high level of confidence that everybody had in you because they did. They had it in you before you broke the trust. Not it the A a mistake, an error, doesn't
Penny Cook: Right.
Sarah Wilson: get rid of all of that really great history. We're just dealing with what's happened at this point in time.
Penny Cook: So true, Sarah. Would you know if you put yourself in the shoes of somebody who is watching this happen? You're a leader on another team and you're watching some kind of failure or mistake on a partner team, would you rather the leader of that team spend as much time as possible apologizing and letting you know what happened? Or would you rather hear them tell them you understand the impact, apologize and then get to work fixing it?
Sarah Wilson: Yes.
Penny Cook: You know, put yourself in the shoes of the people around you. They want to remedy the situation so they can keep going. They don't wanna be someone who is helping make you feel better because something happened. You're a leader. Take accountability, move forward towards fixing it. That's gonna help rebuild trust, right?
Sarah Wilson: Exactly. And the thing that can really help too, brings us to the second thing we recommend in this situation, is shrink that promise of what's to come into a size that is realistic, manageable, and over a fairly short period of time. So what I'm talking about here is not a big grand promise of this thing's going to be perfect into the future, into the next year and what have you. I'm I'm I'm being a little bit hyperbolic here, but I'm trying to what I'm trying to demonstrate is it's better to actually be really clear about this is what we can do and this is when we can do it and can basically shrink the promise you make to a size that you know that you can keep it. Because to what you said earlier, Penny about it really being a systems issue For the most part, when we break trust in business and our operations team breaks it, it's usually system related. And even though we might not be demonstrating that systems part or over explaining that, it's usually what caused it. So let's recognize that if that is in fact a s at the root cause of it a systems issue, that you want to be realistic in what you promise so that you don't find yourself in another situation where you've broken trust yet again or the same problem creeps up.
Penny Cook: So true. Sarah, even just saying this to shrink that commitment It lowers my blood pressure in thinking about what an error might have been. because there are there are a million different causes of what an error could be. But when you're trying to rebuild trust and regain control of a system, really only committing to those things that you absolutely know you can fulfill, expand horizons beyond where you think your delivery is going to be. shrink scope. To where you absolutely know you can deliver that. And then if it happens that you can add something on top of that, great, that wasn't part of the initial promise. You are fulfilling the thing that you initially promised. And undercommitting like this is going to really help you demonstrate to your peers around you that you understand the severity of the problem, you understand how to set them up for success, and you understand
Sarah Wilson: Yes.
Penny Cook: how to write-size solutions and you have systems in your organization that will work and will deliver the way you're.
Sarah Wilson: Absolutely.
Penny Cook: Yeah.
Sarah Wilson: And for example, if you think or if you you're pretty certain something's going to take three days, say five if it's appropriate in that business context. give yourself and your team that buffer that they need to execute and execute it in the way that they need to, with that peace of mind knowing that they've got an appropriate amount of time. Because the idea isn't to I love your bread b blood pressure example. The idea isn't to raise everybody's blood pressure when they're trying to do better next time, but to give ourselves the right amount of time going forward. Yes.
Penny Cook: Right for the fix, which brings us to thing number three. It is your job. of the leader of this organization to fix the root cause of the thing that broke the trust. And this might be the most difficult part because it might be difficult to figure out what it is that broke, but this is your system and your organization. And again, you don't have to be very vocal about this. You don't have to give lots of detail and minutiae about how you're fixing it and what you're fixing it. You merely need to do the first two, acknowledge the severity of what happened, say very little Cut your commitments so you can actually fulfill them and then work with your team to make sure you have a system in place that is going to allow you to fulfill any of these commitments that you take on. Maybe easier said than done, but this is the job of of leadership in operations, right Sarah?
Sarah Wilson: Absolutely. And it's something to remember and I think you and I both advocate this is Have the right spirit when tackling the root cause of these problems. It's always about the process and not about the people. So it's about the process that needs fixing. it's about the structure, the communication around these things. we can go about fixing that root cause and do very well without sing like without mentioning whose fault it was one single time.
Penny Cook: Right. Right. So a a few places to look when you're trying to, when you're starting from the beginning of how do I remedy a system that is putting out unfulfillable information. So, you know, the first question if you have late work that's coming in, it's not what made that work late, it's what made an early date sayable in the first place. It's usually the case when there's a date that's not going to get met that someone who needs to fulfill something affiliated with that date knows that it's It's not going to be made. They know that the right steps were not made in selecting that date. Make sure you have the right people in the room or vetting that information before it becomes a commitment. Look at the capacity view that you have. Do you are you really informed when you are making commitments around information? The dates, handoffs, owners. Is there work that happens in part of a process that sits in a gap that takes days to remedy? then makes work late in the end. So these are all little places in your process where you could be losing time, losing quality, losing scope that is allowing you to miss these commitments. These are the things that you want to look at.
Sarah Wilson: Absolutely. And it's so it's crazy to me, but you and I both have seen it over and over Penny is the number of little things that fall into the gaps in between in between departments and functions that contribute to so much of the errors that happen, the rework, the stress, and it's really operations job and specialty and what makes operations so great at what we do is the ability to see things systematically and from the from all different views and be the ones to catch those in between gray areas that trip us up so much.
Penny Cook: Absolutely. Those are the things that usually got you into a leadership position in the first place, right? So
Sarah Wilson: Exactly.
Penny Cook: so one thing that Sarah and I like to advise over and over again is when things like this happen, look at your work as if you were a scientist or an observer. There is an emotional component to failing at something, and you've got to set that aside if you really want to get to the root cause. So start being objective about what kind of choices you made. You don't even have to admit that to anyone else. Just understand what
Sarah Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Penny Cook: that is so you can. remedy it and then take one of those failures and trace back the commitments. Trace back the work from the failure all the way back to the beginning and that's going to be really informative for you to figure out what's going on in your org, what's going on with your own commitments, or what's going on in the reporting that you have or the decision making you have in your organization.
Sarah Wilson: Yes, absolutely. So let's recap three really important things. So it's, you know, to be clear, people aren't keeping a whiteboard of you or your department's failures. That's not what we're saying here. You but you are building your reputation on what you do and what you don't do. So those those two things are very much building the reputation of you as a leader and of your department. So rebuilding trust after it's broken is key. Name what was broken and don't over-apologize. No apology tours. Shrink the promise into a size that can be kept over time. And then third, of course, is fix the underlying root cause, examine the system, and use those operational turnaround skills that we all have to find out what the root cause of the issue is to fix it for good going forward. And these really are the type of work that Penny and I do. all the time if you're ever interested in talking to either of us about it. We love to get into this kind of stuff. We've had this kind of experience throughout our careers and we just we're really passionate about it. If this was useful, subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts or send it to a colleague who's rebuilding something right now. You may just know someone. You can find us at operating-on dash purpose.com and on LinkedIn.
Penny Cook: Because great businesses don't just happen, they operate on purpose. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you, Sarah. Good luck out there.
Sarah Wilson: Thank you so much, Penny. Thank you for listening. See you next time.
Penny Cook: And hi, I'm Penny Cook. I'm also a fractional COO And a strategic operations consultant, helping product and consumer brands install, upgrade, and run scalable operations and operational systems that reflect the founder's unique vision and ambition. Let's get into it, Sarah. This is a great topic to talk about and a little painful for people, I think, because what we're
Sarah Wilson: Agreed.
Penny Cook: reflecting is an inevitable failure in a system. And I think that we can all connect to this because we've all been there. And one of the things that helps people become senior leaders in their field is they've navigated challenges like this. You've felt what they feel like either when you've made these mistakes or when you're working with partners who made these mistakes. And just because you've made these mistakes, it doesn't mean your relationships are uncoverable. Unre sorry. It doesn't mean your relationships are unrecoverable. It doesn't mean your reputation is unrecoverable. It's a signal that things need to change in the right direction, and you're absolutely able to do that. So let's start here with where most people go wrong, which is the apology. You know something's gone wrong.
Sarah Wilson: Yes.
Penny Cook: It's not a matter of whether you give one because you're going to give one, but how many times you give it and what you're expecting to happen around you. So your whole correction when something has gone wrong with your team's delivery is three sentences. What you said would happen, what happened, and what's changing. That's it. It can be tempting to start overexplaining, blaming the system, giving explanations. And
Sarah Wilson: Yes.
Penny Cook: you you can share if it's relevant, maybe what went wrong in the system. But the highlight of the apology really is around your accountability because as a leader, this is your job to fix, and you want to start rebuilding the trust from the people around you that you're going to do that, right, Sarah?
Sarah Wilson: Absolutely. I I like the term apology tour. That's not where it's at.
Penny Cook: Yeah.
Sarah Wilson: we can sometimes go overboard when it comes to apologizing for our mistakes and that just people intend well when they they think they're they're taking real accountability and they're they're being open and honest with how it's gone and But it actually lands the opposite. It it sounds almost disingenuous to continue to apologize over and over. And it actually removes confidence that the people outside your team are gonna have in you and your team. The key here is to
Penny Cook: Right.
Sarah Wilson: apologize, but at the same time maintain that high level of confidence that everybody had in you because they did. They had it in you before you broke the trust. Not it the A a mistake, an error, doesn't
Penny Cook: Right.
Sarah Wilson: get rid of all of that really great history. We're just dealing with what's happened at this point in time.
Penny Cook: So true, Sarah. Would you know if you put yourself in the shoes of somebody who is watching this happen? You're a leader on another team and you're watching some kind of failure or mistake on a partner team, would you rather the leader of that team spend as much time as possible apologizing and letting you know what happened? Or would you rather hear them tell them you understand the impact, apologize and then get to work fixing it?
Sarah Wilson: Yes.
Penny Cook: You know, put yourself in the shoes of the people around you. They want to remedy the situation so they can keep going. They don't wanna be someone who is helping make you feel better because something happened. You're a leader. Take accountability, move forward towards fixing it. That's gonna help rebuild trust, right?
Sarah Wilson: Exactly. And the thing that can really help too, brings us to the second thing we recommend in this situation, is shrink that promise of what's to come into a size that is realistic, manageable, and over a fairly short period of time. So what I'm talking about here is not a big grand promise of this thing's going to be perfect into the future, into the next year and what have you. I'm I'm I'm being a little bit hyperbolic here, but I'm trying to what I'm trying to demonstrate is it's better to actually be really clear about this is what we can do and this is when we can do it and can basically shrink the promise you make to a size that you know that you can keep it. Because to what you said earlier, Penny about it really being a systems issue For the most part, when we break trust in business and our operations team breaks it, it's usually system related. And even though we might not be demonstrating that systems part or over explaining that, it's usually what caused it. So let's recognize that if that is in fact a s at the root cause of it a systems issue, that you want to be realistic in what you promise so that you don't find yourself in another situation where you've broken trust yet again or the same problem creeps up.
Penny Cook: So true. Sarah, even just saying this to shrink that commitment It lowers my blood pressure in thinking about what an error might have been. because there are there are a million different causes of what an error could be. But when you're trying to rebuild trust and regain control of a system, really only committing to those things that you absolutely know you can fulfill, expand horizons beyond where you think your delivery is going to be. shrink scope. To where you absolutely know you can deliver that. And then if it happens that you can add something on top of that, great, that wasn't part of the initial promise. You are fulfilling the thing that you initially promised. And undercommitting like this is going to really help you demonstrate to your peers around you that you understand the severity of the problem, you understand how to set them up for success, and you understand
Sarah Wilson: Yes.
Penny Cook: how to write-size solutions and you have systems in your organization that will work and will deliver the way you're.
Sarah Wilson: Absolutely.
Penny Cook: Yeah.
Sarah Wilson: And for example, if you think or if you you're pretty certain something's going to take three days, say five if it's appropriate in that business context. give yourself and your team that buffer that they need to execute and execute it in the way that they need to, with that peace of mind knowing that they've got an appropriate amount of time. Because the idea isn't to I love your bread b blood pressure example. The idea isn't to raise everybody's blood pressure when they're trying to do better next time, but to give ourselves the right amount of time going forward. Yes.
Penny Cook: Right for the fix, which brings us to thing number three. It is your job. of the leader of this organization to fix the root cause of the thing that broke the trust. And this might be the most difficult part because it might be difficult to figure out what it is that broke, but this is your system and your organization. And again, you don't have to be very vocal about this. You don't have to give lots of detail and minutiae about how you're fixing it and what you're fixing it. You merely need to do the first two, acknowledge the severity of what happened, say very little Cut your commitments so you can actually fulfill them and then work with your team to make sure you have a system in place that is going to allow you to fulfill any of these commitments that you take on. Maybe easier said than done, but this is the job of of leadership in operations, right Sarah?
Sarah Wilson: Absolutely. And it's something to remember and I think you and I both advocate this is Have the right spirit when tackling the root cause of these problems. It's always about the process and not about the people. So it's about the process that needs fixing. it's about the structure, the communication around these things. we can go about fixing that root cause and do very well without sing like without mentioning whose fault it was one single time.
Penny Cook: Right. Right. So a a few places to look when you're trying to, when you're starting from the beginning of how do I remedy a system that is putting out unfulfillable information. So, you know, the first question if you have late work that's coming in, it's not what made that work late, it's what made an early date sayable in the first place. It's usually the case when there's a date that's not going to get met that someone who needs to fulfill something affiliated with that date knows that it's It's not going to be made. They know that the right steps were not made in selecting that date. Make sure you have the right people in the room or vetting that information before it becomes a commitment. Look at the capacity view that you have. Do you are you really informed when you are making commitments around information? The dates, handoffs, owners. Is there work that happens in part of a process that sits in a gap that takes days to remedy? then makes work late in the end. So these are all little places in your process where you could be losing time, losing quality, losing scope that is allowing you to miss these commitments. These are the things that you want to look at.
Sarah Wilson: Absolutely. And it's so it's crazy to me, but you and I both have seen it over and over Penny is the number of little things that fall into the gaps in between in between departments and functions that contribute to so much of the errors that happen, the rework, the stress, and it's really operations job and specialty and what makes operations so great at what we do is the ability to see things systematically and from the from all different views and be the ones to catch those in between gray areas that trip us up so much.
Penny Cook: Absolutely. Those are the things that usually got you into a leadership position in the first place, right? So
Sarah Wilson: Exactly.
Penny Cook: so one thing that Sarah and I like to advise over and over again is when things like this happen, look at your work as if you were a scientist or an observer. There is an emotional component to failing at something, and you've got to set that aside if you really want to get to the root cause. So start being objective about what kind of choices you made. You don't even have to admit that to anyone else. Just understand what
Sarah Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Penny Cook: that is so you can. remedy it and then take one of those failures and trace back the commitments. Trace back the work from the failure all the way back to the beginning and that's going to be really informative for you to figure out what's going on in your org, what's going on with your own commitments, or what's going on in the reporting that you have or the decision making you have in your organization.
Sarah Wilson: Yes, absolutely. So let's recap three really important things. So it's, you know, to be clear, people aren't keeping a whiteboard of you or your department's failures. That's not what we're saying here. You but you are building your reputation on what you do and what you don't do. So those those two things are very much building the reputation of you as a leader and of your department. So rebuilding trust after it's broken is key. Name what was broken and don't over-apologize. No apology tours. Shrink the promise into a size that can be kept over time. And then third, of course, is fix the underlying root cause, examine the system, and use those operational turnaround skills that we all have to find out what the root cause of the issue is to fix it for good going forward. And these really are the type of work that Penny and I do. all the time if you're ever interested in talking to either of us about it. We love to get into this kind of stuff. We've had this kind of experience throughout our careers and we just we're really passionate about it. If this was useful, subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts or send it to a colleague who's rebuilding something right now. You may just know someone. You can find us at operating-on dash purpose.com and on LinkedIn.
Penny Cook: Because great businesses don't just happen, they operate on purpose. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you, Sarah. Good luck out there.
Sarah Wilson: Thank you so much, Penny. Thank you for listening. See you next time.
